Exploring the African Centered Paradigm

131 Pages·2017·0.59 MB·English

Exploring the African Centered
Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation
in African World Community Studies

March 2018 Revised Edition

by

Itibari M. Zulu
Foreword by Salim Faraji, Ph.D.

The following is a revised edition of Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and
Innovation in African World Community Studies. Copyright © 1999 by Itibari M. Zulu with all
rights reserved relevant to an open-access publication, originally published in the U.S.A. by
Amen-Ra Theological Seminary Press, a division of Amen-Ra Theological Seminary and Amen-
Ra Community Assembly of California, Inc. ISBN: 0-9674226-0-4. Library of Congress Catalog
Number: 99-63077, printed in the U.S.A. No part of this book (document) may be reproduced in
any manner without the written permission of the author or publisher except in the case of
quotations embodied in review articles. In 1999 this work was submitted and accepted by the
faculty of Amen-Ra Theological Seminary in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Th.D.
degree. The illustration on the first edition (not entered here) are from Ancient Egyptian Designs
for Artist and Craftspeople by Eva Wilson (New York: Dover Publications, 1986). This open-
access electronic edition is available via Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies (P.O.
Box 20443, Long Beach, California 90801) in association with NationTime Press.

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
Community Studies (Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies e-book)
New in this volume is “African Centered Text (1990-2000): A Decade of Protracted
Engagement” which previously appeared in The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.3, no.10,
September 2010, a version of “The Ancient Kemetic Roots of Library and Information Science”
originally appeared in Culture Keepers: Enlightening and Empowering Our Communities of the
First National Conference of African American Librarians (September 4-6, 1992) edited by Dr.
Stanton F. Biddle (Newark, NJ: Black Caucus of the American Library Association, 1995, pp.
246-266); and “Thinking Digital and Acting Responsibly: Notes of an Activist Librarian” is a
revised version of an article in the Handbook of Black Librarianship (Scarecrow Press, 1999),
edited by the late Dr. E.J. Josey.

Contents

Answering the Critics 3
Acknowledgements and Dedication 4
Foreword by Salim Faraji 6
Preface 9

Introduction: The African Centered Paradigm 10
The Ancient Kemetic Roots of Library and Information Science 16
Thinking Digital and Acting Responsibly: Notes of an Activist Librarian 44

Constructing an African Centered Theological Seminary 54
The Nuts and Bolts: Degree Programs and Course Descriptions 60

Temple of Maat 67
Rise Like Ra: The Papyrus of Hu-nefer and the Hymn to Amen-Ra, A Modern Rendition for a
New Millennium 70

Reading African Centered Text: Ancient Tradition Empowering a New Consciousness (A
Selected Annotated Bibliography Exploring African Religion, Philosophy and Spirituality) 76

African Centered Text (1990-2000): A Decade of Protracted Engagement 96

Conclusion: Defining, Defending and Developing 115

About the Author 123

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
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Answering the Critics

There has been very few reviews of this book, however Liegh C. McInnis has offered "Stretch
Your Wings: Famous Black Quotations for Teens/Exploring the African Centered Paradigm:
Discourse and Innovation in African World Community Studies" in MultiCultural Review (1058-
9236), 9 (2), 77; Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe Jr. contributed “Afrocentricity and Ideological
Irredentism” in the New York Amsterdam News (November 9, 2000, vol. 91, issue 45; and Iain S.
Maclean (Department of Philosophy and Religion, James Madison University, Harrisonburg,
Virginia) provided a review in H-Africa (a unit of H-Net, an international interdisciplinary
organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential
of the Internet and the World Wide Web) in May of 2003.

The most critical was by Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. (Nassau Community College of the State
University of New York, Garden City), thus I will answer his criticism first, and then move to
Maclean’s critique.
In the first line of his review, Okoampa-Ahoofe digs deep by referring to the foreword by Salim
Faraji as ‘rather pontifical’. Thus from the start he places at least part of the text as pompously
dogmatic, self-important or pretentious. Next he injects his take on history, stating that “much
Afrocentric discourse which pretends to conscientize global African people is purely academic
and theoretical”. And after an exercise in letting readers know that he is knowable of African
history, he say the book is “particularly for the disciplinary neophyte or novitiate” and that the
book is also “woefully dated in critical parts”. He gives no details on how the book is for the
‘disciplinary neophyte or novitiate’, except to suggest that there is no ongoing debate concerning
the phenotype (i.e., a set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the
interaction of its genotype with the environment) of the ancient Egyptians or that the debate is
dated.
Last, he says that he finds it ‘quite amusing’ that I would mention the work of Henry Louis
Gates, Jr. in reference to the ancient archives at Timbuktu when Ali A. Mazrui had done “The
Africans: A Triple Heritage” before Gates did “Wonders of the African World”. I don’t think
there is or was a race between them, what should matter is the quality of their presentations and
how it can or should advance the knowledge and understanding of African history and culture.
Maclean like Okoampa-Ahoofe starts with a bang; in the first sentence based on the table of
contents he says “this unusual little book seeks to cover a surprising amount of territory, both
historical and intellectual, in a brief and somewhat strange conjunction of material”. To refer to
the book as an ‘unusual little book’ is a bit flipped, but it can ‘stand the heat’. However his
statement “… there is no one central controlling thesis in the text, apart from perhaps offering
the Amen-Ra Seminary as a paradigm” is false.
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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
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The main central controlling thesis of the book is that the African centered paradigm (among
other things) involves exploring the African roots of library and information science, the building
of an African centered theological seminary (Amen-Ra Theological Seminary), applied
Afrocentricity via The Temple of Maat, a guide recourse to books on the African centered
paradigm, an example of ancient Egyptian literature based on the Papyrus of Hu-nefer and the
Hymn to Amen-Ra, and of course personal insight. Thus, as I said in the conclusion to the book
(p.149), this work articulates the “… nature, dynamics, and innovations of the African centered
paradigm. Maclean terms the book a ‘call to action’ book, which is acceptable, but in a more
detailed way, it is a call to critical thinking about the depth of the African centered paradigm,
and thus, how it is linked to all aspects of human life. Second, he would has rather liked a
philosophical explanation of the African centered paradigm that would dig into underlying
values and ethical positions, and a religious thesis on why there is a need for an African centered
theological seminary. Perhaps since 1999 those kinds of issues have been answered. Especially
since the publication of The Afrocentric Paradigm (Africa World Press, 2002) edited by Ama
Mazama that positioned the paradigm as the affective/cognitive/conative, structural, and the
functional with contributors by Molefi Kete Asante, Danjuma Sinue Modupe, Maulana Karenga,
Norman Harris, Linda James Myers, Na’im Akbar, Clenora Hudson-Weems, Nah Dove, Jerome
H. Schiele, editor Ama Mazama, Karimu Welsh-Asante, Mwalimu J. Shujaa, and Asa G. Hillard.
Since I seemingly overlooked this approach, I am certain The Afrocentric Paradigm has, with
much success.
Continuing, Maclean suggests that I labeled dissenting voices as racist. I am puzzled by this
observation because as I page through the book I don’t see where I called anyone a racist. But in
a closer analysis, I see he has returned to the question of race in ancient Egypt (Kemet),
suggesting that “… there could be other historical explanations” to the origins of Kemet, leading
to the idea that the African centered paradigm is rushing to claim to claim Kemet, although there
may be ‘other historical explanations’. I am amazed by the logic. Or should I just call him a
racist and been done? No, there must be other explanations (imperialistic cognation)?
These reviews offer some idea of what readers may have said or thought about this book, but in
the final analysis it important to know if it served its purpose and mission in advancing
discussion around the question of an African centered paradigm in the context of African world
community studies.

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
Community Studies (Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies e-book)
Acknowledgements

Stanley J. Price Jr., Stanton F. Biddle, Malik Simba, Firpo W. Carr, Joseph D. Atkinson III,
Agrippa ‘EZ’ Ezozo, Erebka L. Henry, Goldie L. Montgomery, Phillip McAbee, Alicia A.
Randolph, R.I. Mutope A-Alkebu-Lan (editorial assistance), Camille Killens (editorial
assistance), Arthur J. Graham (editorial assistance), Clyde Woods (1957-2011), Kofi Lomotey,
Molefi Kete Asante, Salim Faraji, Delaney E. Smith, M.D., Zeb Sanders III; Tony McCully,
Madeleine Tatton, Debo Kotun, the UCLA Afrocentric Book Forum, and Simone Niongbo
Koivogui Zulu.

Dedication

Mrs. Willa M. Price (mother), Stanley J. Price, Jr. (brother), Aurelia D. Price (sister), Huruma S.
Zulu (brother), Simone Niongbo Koivogui Zulu (former wife), Akiba K. Zulu (daughter), Itibari
M. Zulu, Jr. (son), Togba K. Zulu (son), Kadiatou N. Zulu (daughter), Dr. Oba T’Shaka
(mentor), Dr. Maulana Karenga (mentor), Kehinde Solwazi (mentor), Dr. Malik Simba (mentor),
and the late Dr. E.J. Josey (mentor).

Ancestors: Stanley J. Price, Sr. (father, grandfather), Dr. Charles G. Koivogui (father,
grandfather), Hadji Bintou Camara Koivogui Keita (mother, grandmother), Willie Edwards
(father, grandfather, great-grandfather), Cora Lee Williams (mother, grandmother, great-
grandmother), the Rev. James H. Williams (father, grandfather, great-grandfather), Joe Price
(father, grandfather, great-grandfather), Norman Banks, Sr. (father, grandfather, great-
grandfather), Fred K. Hughes (father, grandfather), Balla Camara (father, grandfather, great-
grandfather), Moussoucoro Kadiatou Camara (mother, grandmother, great-grandmother), Togba
Koivogui (father, grandfather, great-grandfather), Niongbo Koivogui (mother, grandmother,
great-grandmother), Pierre Koivogui (brother, uncle), Francois D. Koivogui (brother, father,
uncle), Loffo Keita (sister, aunt), Julius K. Nyerere (former president, United Republic of
Tanzania.

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
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Foreword

Exploring the African Centered Paradigm is an act of Sankofa. Itibari M. Zulu stands in
ancestral epic memory while simultaneously forging future possibilities for the recreation of an
African world culture. Zulu's intellectual labor is not reactionary naivete, nor historical
romanticism. He has intelligently and critically responded to the 500 years of African
dehumanization brought about by Western intellectual and religious imperialism. This book
represents the vanguard of a worldwide African cultural and intellectual revolution capable of
resurrecting the genius of Africa in the 21st century.

Zulu offers to the African world community a theoretical and operational paradigm of the
African centered project that refutes the misguided characterizations of this historic African-led
intellectual freedom movement, and challenges those proponents of Afrocentricity to constantly
maintain a dialectic between theoretical construction and pragmatic implementation.

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante of Temple University asserts that, "Afrocentricity is a metatheoretical
framework, a philosophical position," thus the African centered proposition is not a simplistic
orientation. Hence, Zulu upholds the historical necessity of this important philosophical stance,
and even more importantly, he demonstrates how metatheory is structured and restructured into
institutions that emancipate and reaffirm the brilliance and humanity of African people.

Indeed Zulu's major achievement is that he concretizes the African centered paradigm into the
disciplines of theological education, library and information science, and information
technology. Why focus on these three areas?

First, the religio-spiritual and cosmological worldviews of African people have served as
reservoirs for creating civilizations and resisting the onslaught of oppressive forces that are
inimical to human civilization. The stupendous accomplishments of Nile Valley civilizations
and the great empires of South and West Africa are rooted in the African sacred, spiritual and
cosmological orientation to the world. Either through the creative adaptation and indigenization
of invaders and missionary religions or through the practice of self-created indigenous spiritual
traditions, African people understand religion as culture, as a way of being human and
perpetuating our unique humanness in the world.

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
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One cannot ignore the role of religion in the African world community since the devastating
impact of the Maafa (disaster, enslavement, human injustice). We need only to invoke the
legacy Papaloi Boukman, the priest of Vodun who stood by Touissant in the Haitian revolution
against France; African American enslaved juju men and women or conjurers who instigated
plantation revolt in the United States; Nehanda a priestess of Zimbabwe who ignited a rebellion
against British colonialism in the 1890's; Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) and Martin
Luther King, Jr., ministers representing Islam and Christianity who gave their lives for the
freedom of African people, and "The Mahdi", and Muhammad Ahmad Ibn Abdallah who
utilized Islam as a vehicle to fight against British colonialism in the Sudan in the late 19th
century.

And also, the Black church in the U.S., Rastafarianism, the Qilombos of Brazil and the African
independent church that reflect the tradition of religion and revolutionary renewal in the African
world community. To invoke this legacy, Zulu decisively asserts the importance of studying,
recording and learning from the variety of religious movements, cultures and civilizations in both
the historical and contemporary African world community; and proposes a graduate theological
education at the Amen-Ra Theological Seminary, an institution designed to prepare spiritual
leaders and scholars to navigate the multifaceted terrain of religion and culture in the African
world community.

Second, the ability to collect, organize, disseminate and circulate relevant and pertinent
information is power. We live in a world that is increasingly defining itself through the
manipulation and appropriation of intellectual and informational capital. Library and
information science is the process by which we educate ourselves and document our current
historical moment. The library and the librarian maintain the collective memory and traditions
of a people and provide an open forum in which the community may access information for its
continued self-creation and propagation. No doubt, this is the reason why Alexander of
Macedonia raided all the ancient temple libraries of Kemet to ascertain for his empire the
historical legacy and achievements of ancient Africa.

The library is the wellspring of cultural consciousness. The creation and survival of the library
equates to the continued existence of human civilization. And thus, Zulu reminds us that the
contemporary African American librarian or information specialist should function as the ancient
priest-librarian of Kemet did, that is, as caretaker of community and a custodian of cultural and
intellectual traditions.

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
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In conclusion, I can best encapsulate Zulu's third area of focus by using the Maatic equation
Sankofa + Digital Info-Technology = African self-determination. At no other time in history are
we able to redefine African and global consciousness in the manner that is allowable in the
digital age. It is imperative that the African world community masters this technology in the
same way our ancestors before us mastered agriculture and masonry. Computer information and
technology is a primary medium by which modern societies and institutions maintain
themselves. This new mode of human communication will exacerbate the residual effects of
colonialism, enslavement, apartheid, segregation and imperialism in the African world
community.

This book is one more contribution to the resurrection and restoration of African humanity, and
the creation of a new African world order.

Salim Faraji
Claremont, California
August 23, 1999

Biographical Update: Salim Faraji

Salim Faraji is currently Associate Professor of Africana Studies at California State University,
Dominguez Hills and curriculum developer and consulting program director for Concordia University,
Irvine’s Master of Arts in International Studies Africa Program. He earned his Ph.D. at Claremont
Graduate University in Religious Studies and History. Dr. Faraji’s research and scholarship represents
the cutting edge of Africana Transdisciplinarity, transgressing the traditional boundaries of Religious
Studies, African History, Nubian Studies, Ancient History, African Diaspora Studies, Martial Arts and
Youth Development & Education. He is the author of The Roots of Nubian Christianity Uncovered: The
Triumph of the Last Pharaoh and co-author of The Plan: A Guide for Women Raising African American
Boys from Conception to College and The Plan Workbook. He is also a co-author of the book, The Origin
of the Word Amen: Ancient Knowledge the Bible Has Never Told and a contributing author to the
Encyclopedia of African Religion and the Oxford Dictionary of African Biography. He is a researcher and
practitioner of African and African American martial arts and is currently revising his
work MontuScholar: Mysticism and Martial Arts in Africa and the African Diaspora. He is also Vice
President of Building Libraries for Africa a non-profit organization dedicated to providing libraries and
literary resources for rural villages in Africa. He also presents a ministerial background having completed
his Master of Divinity at the Claremont School of Theology and formerly served in the United Methodist
and Unitarian Universalist Churches. He is currently a licensed minister in the African Methodist
Episcopal Churches and a practicing African Traditional Priest who has been initiated in both Akan
traditions of Ghana, West Africa and the classical traditions of the Nile Valley. He has made several trips
to West Africa and Egypt.

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Preface

The time for Africans to examine the structure of knowledge is now. We cannot grant to others what is
necessary for us to do for ourselves at this moment.

----- Molefi Kete Asante
Malcolm X as Cultural Hero & Other Afrocentric Essays, p.49.

This book is in agreement with historical and contemporary efforts to clear space for the African
voice to articulate an African centered paradigm before, during and after dogmatic
investigations, and premeditated damaging critique.

Molefi Kete Asante, Maulana Karenga, and a host of others have done a good job in defining and
articulating the paradigm, yet wild and desperate attempts constantly surface to denounce and
executed the project, and its leadership. However, in the midst of this controversy, the project
has grown, as organizations and individuals apply its ideals and principles to an array of
academic disciplines and professional enterprises based on expertise in psychology, history,
social work, library science, and other areas of understanding.

This movement dwarfs the anti-Afrocentric ideological posturing of yesterday and challenges
new opponents to confront the perpetual motion of people and institutional structures that utilize
intellectual and scientific criteria to construct a paradigm shift based on an independent
investigation of truth that can transform social and cultural insights.

As you read this dissertation, I invite you to open your consciousness to new ideals, and let each
word be a libation in honor of our noble ancestors.

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Introduction:
The African Centered Paradigm

Any meaningful and authentic study of peoples of African descent must begin and proceed with Africa as
the center.

----- Abu Shardow Abarry
Journal of Black Studies (vol.21, no.2, December 1990, p.123)

The African centered paradigm rest on the work of scholars and activists who have articulated
the importance of grounding the study and research of Africa and African people in African
ideals and values. And as a result, most issues concerning the African centered perspective
surround the question of knowledge and paradigm construction. Therefore, our first challenge is
to articulate a paradigm, and secondly, to ensure that it is a working organism in service to
human development, and understanding. To this end, this anthology examines patterns,
examples, ideas and orientations to constructing theory and institution building consistent with
the ethos of the African world community experience. 1

As we work to develop this paradigm, we must also remain cognizant of detractors in our midst,
working in their own way to define, distort and simply box the African centered paradigm into
an ill-defined ghetto of "Afrocentrism" that equates the Afrocentric dialectic as a narrowly
focused and divisive enterprise. 2

In contrast, after a through reading of the books listed in this text, and a basic understanding of
some of the complexities of Afrocentricity (an intellectual orientation) and the African centered
paradigm (a process of implementation), it should be clear that the aim of the African centered
project rest on a progressive social and theoretical development agenda.

As with other debates, this discussion may continue unrestricted, however, those who have a
working and theoretical knowledge of the Afrocentric project must judiciously begin to define
the African centered paradigm as a critical multidisciplinary humanistic, intellectual and cultural
dynamic involving:

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Exploring the African Centered Paradigm: Discourse and Innovation in African World
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